Lost Lyrics
by RtDK
Summary: Ritsu was always the odd one out. Now she needs help dealing with the biggest hurdle of her life. One-shot


A/N: _Well, following a motherboard fire and a brief hospital stay (not related to the former), I've had some time to rethink my strategy for this fic. So this is how it works--I'm rebooting this puppy for something a little more inspiration-induced, as opposed to just writing it for the sake of writing it. Oh, and ... it's a one-shot now. Hope that doesn't upset anyone. The title's the same. But the story itself is different._

You think you know someone. All their little secrets, quirks and skeletons. The things they don't admit to their relatives, the things they trust only their closest confidants with. Some things people even deny themselves knowledge of. Sometimes they just don't want to acknowledge a facet of themselves. "Wearing a mask" as you might call it.

I should know. I'm an expert on the whole "mind games" matter. You could even say it's what I was born for.

I'm not talking about Multiple Personality Disorder here. That's a whole other kettle of fish. What I'm talking about is a little more fundamental; something we've all fought with before.

Our demons. Desires. Regrets. Things we have to cope with every day. Things we don't want to give a face to. But they're always there, and we can suppress them all we like. In the end, they're a part of us. We accept it and move on.

Then some people get caught up in snags on the road called Life.

These are the individuals who grow up with a war waging inside. Mental battles. A fight with no armies or generals or weapons. A fight that you can tell people about--but in the end, it's your conflict, and the calls are yours to make.

Of course, it's not always that dynamic either. Sometimes there is no struggle.

Only an impasse.

That's more of what I'm involved in. Well, more specifically, this girl and I.

Ritsu, you see, is not what she looks like on the surface. All you see is a facade. A fake. A front.

To be quite frank, she's living a lie. So this really is her battle. And she calls on me to participate.

I met Ritsu when she was just growing into puberty. That's pretty much when I came along and got involved. It's been a long few years, and I've seen her come to terms with several aspects of herself.

I hope I don't sound immodest when I say that a lot of the progress she's made is probably--at least in part--because of me. It's sort of because she's afraid to face what _I_ represent the most.

You wouldn't know it, but Ritsu's actually matured a lot over the years. Her hyperactive personality arises largely from her fear of departure from the norm, and what people around her would think of that change. So she maintains that same persona that she had already started growing out of in her youth because she's afraid of rejection. Her flamboyance always yielded her friends and triumph.

The scary and unfortunate part is how ingrained it's become with her personality. To be loud and fussy is second-nature to her now.

And sadly, I think it's starting to affect her life.

I've raised my concerns with her before but she claims to share none of them, putting me out of her mind and moving on to other things.

And a few years of this same old routine has gotten tiresome.

It's because she feels the same that we're spinning wheels. We're at odds with each other, and no progress can be made. It's been months, maybe a year or two of stagnation--I've lost track--and I'm at the end of my rope. And she probably is too.

This whole thing started a couple years back. I was an afterthought at the time. Not even. Ritsu first made me out as an imaginary friend.

That imagination served her well. I turned out to be a pretty well fleshed-out individual--almost independent of her thought processes. In fact, I'm only tied to her because I'm a fraction of her subconscious.

A very _independent _fraction, mind you.

Probably why she's kept me around since she was so young. I sparked around the age of eight, and bloomed from there. Getting rid of me would probably be similar to killing a person of flesh and blood, at least in her mind.

These days, I play a more active role in her life. I'm one of those background character-types. Heard, but not seen. Or at least, I try to be heard. Most of the time, Ritsu has me revert to moral support when she lets me tag along. I'm not just a ghostly friend anymore.

Today, I decided to stay home. Constantly being at school wears a bit on my patience.

I hear the door open and shut downstairs. I _feel _Ritsu coming before I hear her footsteps. Judging from the exaggerated energy in her walk, she's not in a good mood.

"How was school?" I ask without looking up. Despite my monotone, I really am interested in how her day went.

She doesn't answer. Instead she drops her bag to the floor. She makes her way to the mirror and stares at her reflection.

Her hairband is the first article of clothing to go. I wait quietly as she changes into more comfortable attire.

She falls face-down onto the bed where I had been. I wind up sitting on the floor instead. She doesn't seem to have the energy to think me up a chair. We're both quiet for awhile. I don't look at her. She doesn't look at me.

The atmosphere's a little thick. I feel her tiredness and yawn loudly.

I know what's coming. We've done this thing before.

"Hey," she says, rolling over to face me.

Here we go.

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

She's spent all this time quietly thinking just to get to this spot again.

I chew on one of my imaginary nails. "Sometimes. Depends on my mood."

"Aww, come on," she pouts, burying her head in her pillow. "Why can't you answer seriously?" she mutters through the fabric.

"'Course I think you're pretty," I reply. "But I'm biased. I have to live with you every day."

Ritsu always had a self-image problem. And every time someone's teased her about being "blinded by the glare off her forehead" (okay, that had been my joke) it gets worse. Sometimes we just talk about how she gives herself too hard a time. The kids are just playing. Then it's just a matter of convincing her.

The teasings have eased up since entering high school. Her peers have matured, and so has she--though you wouldn't know it when first meeting her.

Ritsu rests her chin on her arms. She really _is _pretty with her bangs down.

"It doesn't help to hear me say it, does it?" I ask.

She shakes her head.

"Then why ask me? Did something happen today?"

My interest is piqued.

She's quiet for a little while. Then she look at me with those bright, solemn eyes.

"I lost those lyrics Mio gave me."

The _Winter Days _poem?

_She's frantic. Sweat dots her forehead. It burns her eyes, obscuring her panicked search._

_Everything from her book bag is out on the floor, scattered. She rifles through the disaster, looking for the missing sheet._

_The piece of music that's touched her heart._

_"C'mon, where is it?" she growls to herself. She doesn't even acknowledge the girls passing by in the halls, giving her weird looks._

_She has torn her belongings apart looking for a piece of paper._

_A piece of paper. One that she carries with her everywhere._

_And she's dropped it somewhere at school._

_The tears sting the corners of her eyes. She hates the thought of what would happen if someone recognized it from one of their concerts._

_Copies around school ... rumors ... snickers behind her back._

_What scares her the most is what the writer of that tune would think if she found out._

_Tainaka Ritsu is the tough-guy, the boy of the girls' school. She doesn't get all sappy over a stupid song. Especially a song written by her best friend._

_The truth is, she does. And when she remembers the day Mio revealed to her that it was all just lyrics to a song, she cries herself to sleep._

_A song written by her best friend. A song about her._

_Ritsu hates knowing that her friend thinks about her. And she hates not being able to tell her friend that she thinks about her too. It would ruin her whole image. And her life would fall down around her ears._

_The thing she hates most though, is how high she felt before, when she thought it was a love letter._

_To think that someone out there would feel something for such a strange-looking girl._

_Her confusion would give way to a sense of hope._

_And Mio took that away._

_She loves her for it. She hates her for it._

_Ritsu collapses onto her backside in despair, barely able to hold back the tears. Her hairband falls off. _

_The lyrics. _Her _lyrics. They're gone._

_Someone's thrown them away, like it was just some scribbled-on mess. Never thought they might be special to somebody. They're nowhere to be found. They're forever lost._

_Somehow, even though she's memorized them, it's just not the same as holding the physical proof of them in her hands. It's just not the same warmth--no matter how false it was._

_She feels like she's betrayed a memory._

_Ritsu lets a single tear get away and run down her face._

_"Ritsu-u," comes Mio's familiar voice._

_She dries her eyes and looks up, scrambling to put her hairband back on._

_"What are you doing?" she asks, addressing the mess all around her. "Looks like a tornado hit your stuff."_

_"Just ... lost something. That's all. I need to find it."_

_"What was it?"_

_Ritsu's brain races for an answer that isn't the truth. A pencil she could live without. Her favorite pencil? She doesn't form attachments to such stupid things. And Mio would know better._

_"Piece of paper."_

_Vague enough. It could be homework for all Mio knows._

_"This?" Mio produces a sheet of crumpled paper._

_A paper with lyrics on it._

_At the top are the words _Winter Days.

_Ritsu blanches and feels her heart stop. Her amber eyes widen, and her breath catches in her throat._

_"You should be more careful with the stuff people give you," Mio says with a smile. "If it was something more important, you could be in trouble." _

_She softly taps her on the forehead and hands it over to her._

_"You're right.... S-sorry," she says, her face burning up._

_"Want some help cleaning up?"_

_"No," Ritsu answers a little too quickly. "I got it."_

_Mio shrugs and waves. Then she's gone._

_Ritsu cleans up her mess, and heads home in record time._

Somewhere along the line of reliving the experience, I acquired a glass of juice. Probably to help Ritsu with an air of casualness.

"What do you think?" I ask, releasing the straw from my teeth. I stir my illusionary beverage a bit.

"I dunno," she mutters.

At least I know why she's so rattled today. And for once it wasn't academically-involved.

"Do you think she would've said something if she'd known?"

"I dunno," she repeats.

"Mio usually doesn't mince words with you. If she has something to say, she'd say it."

"Unless it was something so bad she couldn't say it...."

She's scared about how weird Mio might think she is. She won't even begin to consider the real truth.

"There something you wanna talk about?" I ask, looking over at her. She has her face down in her pillow again.

My juice glass is gone.

Ritsu's silent.

We've been here before too. Part of me hopes that she's ready to explore the subject she's been terrified of considering up to now. For all of Ritsu's outgoing nature, there are just some things she just doesn't want to talk about.

Remember that thing I said about your demons and desires and such being part of you?

See, I'm a representation of one of those things nowadays. Ritsu feels she needs to give a face to her problems at times, and I'm that face. So it's not a great life, but at least I can feel like I'm helping her grow into herself.

"How long do you wanna play this game?" I ask.

She lies face-down, motionless.

"We can keep dodging this thing all you want, or we can deal with it here."

"I don't wanna do this," she mutters.

She visibly clenches.

"So what do you even carry that piece of paper around for anyway? I thought you hated Mio's songs. Or is that just what you want people to think?"

"Never mind...."

I shrug, laying back. "Okay. Let's ignore the elephant in the room some more."

"I don't know why I bother."

"What? Being worried about the song you carry around with you?"

She doesn't reply.

"Ritsu, I've been around for awhile. You really don't give me enough credit. I know you better than you think I do."

"So why don't you tell me what my problem is then?"

"'Cause like it or not, I'm not the one in charge here. You're the one wrestling with this thing, not me."

"There's nothing to wrestle," she says, rolling over towards the wall and curling up. She's trying to escape again.

"If that was true, we wouldn't have anything to talk about."

I get up and sit behind her.

"Why did you ask if I thought you were pretty?"

It's a legitimate question. Ritsu's never asked that kind of thing before--not to anyone else. Me, once before, but that was after that time at the restaurant, when she found out the love letter was actually just one of Mio's songs.

I have a feeling the lyrics could be a cornerstone here.

"I just wondered," she says. She hugs a pillow like a security blanket.

"I think there's more to it than that." I lean over to try and get a look at her face. Too dark.

"You wanna know what I think?"

She's silent and hides her face.

"I think you want to deal with this thing that you don't want to admit exists. And I don't think you'll feel right until you do."

I can see her holding an old picture of herself and Mio, back from middle school. She hugs it to her chest and sighs.

"The first step's admitting you have a problem," I say.

"I don't have a problem."

"Well I say you do, and I'm a part of you too. So that counts for something." I produce a fistful of pictures, memories of the times she and Mio have shared. Some pictures are blank, just reminders of how warm she felt those times.

Ritsu shivers.

"Have you ever even tried telling her about it?"

"She's just my friend. Besides, she wouldn't wanna hear me talk about that kind of stuff...."

Ritsu doesn't give Mio a lot of credit either. She doesn't pay attention to all the little signs in Mio's expressions in their everyday conversations. Not the way I do. Her paying attention that way would qualify her as a sissy in her mind. And Ritsu's not a sissy.

And she's not. This surely isn't an easy thing to talk about--even with your imaginary friend.

"'Just your friend?' Ritsu, she's your _best _friend. And she cares. If you have a problem, she'd want to hear about it and help you in any way she could. But you need to tell her first."

I know her fears on this subject though. She could talk to Mio about almost anything else. Schoolwork, friends, family....

But this strikes a little closer to home. And I have to admit--we don't know what to expect.

And Mio's far too important to drive away with a simple coming-out.

I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Ritsu apparently doesn't want to take that kind of risk.

But to get to her to confess she's gay to someone else, she has to admit it to herself first.

This is where her resistance stiffens.

"I don't wanna be gay," she murmurs. Her voice breaks. Sounds like she's on the verge of tears.

"Ritsu, I don't think that's a choice you can make. Any more than you could choose to be a boy or a girl, or dumb or smart. It's all part of ya already."

"Easy for you to say. You don't have to live with it."

"You don't think what happens to you affects me?" I use her back as a pillow.

"You're not real."

"I'm real to you. Isn't that all that matters? Besides, we share everything. You're happy, I'm happy--you're sad, so am I."

"I don't wanna be a lesbian," she whimpers. "What would everybody else think? What would Mio think? She'd hate me."

"You don't know that," I say, looking over her shoulder. "Who knows? Maybe you're just hurting yourself with this."

Ritsu looks at me out of the corner of her tear-soaked eye. "What do you mean?"

"Well, let's think about it for a second. I don't know if you notice the way you are when Mugi acts the way she does around Sawako-sensei, but every time you talk about it, you act all grossed out--like a homophobe."

"So?" 

"So, what if Mio wanted to say something, but she was scared of what _you _would think?"

"Me?" Ritsu says.

"You and your opinion matter an awful lot to her Ritsu. She doesn't wanna say or do anything that'd make you hate her. And you're always playing the tough-guy routine anyway."

"Mio ... can't be that way." Ritsu shakes her head and clenches her eyes. "She's just not."

"Maybe not. But do you trust her enough as your best friend to let her know you are?"

She's quiet.

"Do you think she'd really, really hate you for coming out to her like this?"

"I don't know."

Again--lack of credit. And part of it's also Ritsu's paranoia of the world being out to judge her for every little thing she could do wrong. But the world is Mio in this case.

Her mother, her brother, the others in the band? Nothing. It's that pretty bassist whose opinion matters.

And I can say with confidence that Mugi and Yui wouldn't care--might even _welcome _the revelation. Azusa tries too hard to be mature and level-minded to say anything, even if she did mind, and I have my suspicions about Sawako-sensei's own orientation.

On the home front, Satoshi would probably support us. He's the the kind of brother who looks up to his sister, and whatever she does must be the right thing--even if the parents say otherwise.

Momma-Tainaka though ... that might be one heckuva hurdle. Ritsu's mother was always very conservative-minded, and believed that homosexuality was disgusting and indecent. That it was a lifestyle choice or a disease. Some mom....

"Even if Mio wouldn't hate me ... Mom would never let me do it." She rolls onto her back.

"Mom doesn't need to know."

Ritsu looks at me. "You know she'd find out. She knows people."

"You're going away to college soon anyway," I say. "She can't control you if you don't live with her. And why do you care what Mom thinks anyway? She's a bitch."

She snorts and tries to suppress a laugh.

I smile. It's the first sign I've seen in awhile that the _real_ Ritsu is still alive and well.

We share a collective silence for awhile, letting everything sink in. I think this time I may have actually done it. Ritsu may not admit it out loud, but she knows who she is. Even if she doesn't want to be, she knows she's gay, and she knows who she's in love with.

If nothing else, it's an important first step.

"What do I tell her?" she asks.

"That's up to you," I say. "I'd start with the truth. Or, if you're chicken," I tease, "then you could try little stuff like, holding her hand or something."

"You don't think she'd freak?" Ritsu asks.

"Honestly?" I say with a smile, "No, no I don't."

She may not value my opinion on her looks too highly, but whether she'd admit it or not, Ritsu knows that she trusts me with the important things.

"Geez," she sighs. She's scared. Heck, I am too.

"What do you think?" I ask.

"Will you be there when I tell her?" she looks at me.

"No way," I tell her with a smile. "I'm not even real. This has all been you this whole time. I'm just a figment of your imagination."

She smiles.

"A very _independent _figment."

I smile back.

She's not ready to come clean yet--but when she is, she'll know it. I'll be watching. And I know she'll be fine.


End file.
